


The Delusion of Grandeur

by Loverman8



Series: The Delusion of Grandeur [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Angst, Attempt at Humor, Cunning Harry Potter, Drama, Gen, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Political Harry Potter, Politics, Powerful Harry, Sane Tom Riddle, Sane Voldemort (Harry Potter), Slytherin Harry Potter, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Smart Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:35:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28786551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loverman8/pseuds/Loverman8
Summary: This story started much like one falls in love - slowly then all at once.It might have been poetic, except nothing is really poetic, it happens and it ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red.
Relationships: Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: The Delusion of Grandeur [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2110497
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	The Delusion of Grandeur

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy!

All I loved - I loved alone.   
\- Edgar Allan Poe 

Tom Riddle was born to a dead woman on New Years Eve, 1926. 

It went downhill from there. 

His early childhood was spent looking out of windows, staring out at the grey panorama that was London. Nameless faces littered the streets, passing in and out of his memory. Relevant for a moment. Then winking out again. 

It was dreary; it was cold. 

The emptiness grated at him the most- even more than the blandness there was a sense of waiting, of biding time before something or someone stumbled into his life. It would be a stranger too, a man of considerable intellect or else mystique would grab him and take him away.

He dreamt of his father for a long time.

As the sun set on his sixth year, however, he forced himself to approach a dangerous truth. No one was coming for him. And so, at the alarming age of seven, he closed the book on that and made for better things.

He bought curtains. 

He focused his efforts on the other children of the orphanage. Before now he barely spared them passing glances, after all their meager intellect paled in comparison to his; they were so dull and lifeless. It seemed to Tom that they ceased to exist the moment he looked away. 

Did they exist at all, he wondered, even as he tried to make polite conversation. 

Does the tree that falls in a deserted forest make any sound?

He found out quickly that even if they barely qualified to be people they were alive enough to reject him. The freak, they called him, the monster, never mind that he rarely stood in the dark. 

Tom Riddle, being only a child, didn’t take the time to ask himself if he was really a monster or if this was what it meant to be a person. 

Tom Riddle had always been a good listener.

And so goes the tale, after all from disappointment it is only a hop skip and a jump to bitterness, and for a young boy in London cynicism was on display everywhere. The war was coming, no longer a distant thing, but still far enough to scrape only at the edges of his peripheral vision. 

It is almost a miracle he didn’t dry up. Any other child would have been beaten into submission by now, but Tom Riddle cold never be accused of mediocrity, and so he remained stubbornly alight. Burning so brightly others had to look away. 

The years progressed in a linear fashion.

There was some excitement but it was dwarfed by waiting. For what, he couldn’t tell you, after all his parents’ graves had grown cold a long time ago. Still, he made his mark when he could, always careful not to leave a trace lest he be more than suspected of devilry, it had taken awhile to recover from the exorcism ordeal and he wasn’t eager to try again. 

The rabbit swung almost gently from the rafters, he didn’t hear the scream but he knew it was coming-

Tom Riddle spent his days as an island unto himself. 

————————————————————————————————————

Harry Potter was born to ghosts and shadows on July 31, 1980.

Carried by a basket in what might have been some mockery of biblical symbolism, dropped rudely on a doorsteps and left only mostly intact. 

I suspect, personally, that he would have been rather flat at the end of things if it weren’t for his own quality of brightness. After all, for him there wasn’t really dreaming of bigger things, there was always something to do (otherwise known as clean) and he had little spare time. 

At least, that was until the first time he did The Thing. 

It hadn’t even been on purpose.

Great and terrible purpose. 

Instead, it had been fueled by desperation - how apt, in retrospect, that it should share the motivation of everything else he did. 

He was sitting in his cupboard in the morning. Early, earlier than he needed to be awake but still bright enough that sunlight was creeping under his door. Unfortunately, his guardians had not thought to install a lightbulb in the cabinet, so it was dark enough that he struggled to see his hand inches from his face. 

He flexed his fingers where no one could see them. 

He was suddenly struck by how quiet it was, how the silence emphasized the ringing in his ears. 

He traced his ribs with a finger. 

He was dying, he realized. It might take a year, it might take ten or fifty or one hundred, but he was slowly dying. 

What’s kept inside rots. He hadn’t been outside in a long time. 

The ease with which he waited for death was alarming and suddenly inconceivable. Was that all he was? A stepping stone to the end of things? 

He would not just be another name. 

And all at once there was light and fire and water and beauty all around him. 

Harry Potter was an island unto himself.

————————————————————————————————————

Minerva McGonagall pursed her lips and stared thoughtfully at the note in her hand. It was short, informative, and very, very dangerous. 

After considering her options for another moment, she opened a drawer and pulled out a quill, ink pot, and piece of parchment. Once again she bemoaned foolish wizarding tradition, she could be using a ballpoint pen but was reduced to this. 

Well, it certainly was stubborn. 

Quickly scratching out a second letter, she sealed it with wax and pushed it aside. She whistled for her personal owl.

“Send this one to the New Ministry, and this to.. our special friend.” At her trill of affirmation, Minerva spared a small smile. Purchasing an owl as a child was one of her better decisions, she was sure. 

She watched as Lydia flew off, starting wistfully at the mountains that surrounded the Scottish Highlands. 

Home was so close, and yet so far.

Brought out of her daydreaming by a low chirping sound, she turned to startle at the clock on the wall. She was almost late.

With a sharp turn, she was off, leaving rustling leaves in her wake.


End file.
